


The Reminder

by Caia (Caius)



Category: Transformers Generation One
Genre: D/s, M/M, Season 3, Writing on the Body, kink bingo, non-erotic punishment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-12
Updated: 2010-08-12
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:28:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caius/pseuds/Caia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After "The Burden Hardest to Bear," Scourge needs a reminder of who he belongs to. Written for the <a href="http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://kink-bingo.dreamwidth.org/"><strong>kink_bingo</strong></a> prompt, "writing on the body."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reminder

Everything on Scourge hurt.

Well, everything that he could still feel. He seemed to have lost track of large portions of his frame. But every still-functional pain receptor was screaming at him in agony.

He'd hurt since he'd first put the Matrix into his chest. His systems were not meant to take that kind of power, and the pain had become progressively worse, even when he had still been filled with its power and madness. He had felt somewhat like he had when he'd channelled Unicron's power, powerful and confident but driven by a will not his own. And somewhat like he would toward the end of a long, _long_ interface session with Galvatron, sensor nodes stimulated to the point of damage, hooked up to his leader's energy flow for _joors_, driven long past overload and into exhaustion and pain.

But Galvatron's power, and Unicron's power, Scourge had been built to handle. The Matrix was--as Galvatron had demonstrated, right before Scourge was stupid enough to put the slagging thing in his chest--completely incompatible with Unicronian systems. It had _hurt_, even when Scourge had been too power-drunk to notice. It had warped his form--probably trying to give him a trailer or something, but only managing to raise painful and hideous bubbles on his armor.

Just that would have been more than enough to keep Scourge in the repair bay for days, and _certainly_ enough to discourage him from trying a stunt like that again.

And then his punishment began.

Galvatron went first, as he did in everything.

When Galvatron transformed to shoot him, Scourge had hoped to be vaporized; anything to end the pain. But, no. Galvatron wasn't as kind to him as he had been to Starscream.

Scourge didn't disintegrate. Instead, the power--Galvatron's power--melted and warped his poor abused plating even further, overloaded his systems once _again_, painfully flooded power lines that had not yet recovered from the power of the Matrix, and sent his body into desperate convulsions.

"Mighty Galvatron--please--have mercy--it wasn't me, it was the Matrix--!" Scourge was hardly aware of what he was saying, only that it wasn't having any effect.

Or maybe it had, since he was still alive.

He distantly sensed Galvatron's hands on him, beating and tearing at his plating, as he slipped offline.

*****

He came online to more pain. Electricity, this time? His sensors were giving him contradictory signals. It wasn't until his optics booted back up that he realized what was happening.

Cyclonus was taking his turn at punishing him. What he felt was his commanding officer's electro-whip.

His wings were pinned (painfully, but in the circumstances it hardly registered) to something flat and vertical, probably the side of a building. His tracking systems, as they came back up, helpfully indicated that he was outdoors, and on Chaar, and that, in his current condition, there were exactly zero star systems he could travel to, with extremely limited natural resources.

_Tell me something I don't know_, Scourge thought, and his tracking systems came up with some more detailed--and exceedingly useless--information about Chaar, before helpfully informing him that he was surrounded by most of the Decepticon army.

Ah. He was being made an example of. That would explain why Cyclonus was bothering to beat someone who wasn't capable of reacting.

Was he? His proprioceptors were completely scrambled, but as his attention was drawn to his body again, he became aware--through yet another rush of pain--that he was involuntarily kicking and writhing, as Cyclonus' whip sent jolts of electricity into the control centers for various parts of his body.

Now that he was conscious, that shouldn't still be necessary. Since Scourge was an Example, he might just as well do a good job of it.

He started screaming, first incoherently, and then as he got the hang of it, "Cyclonus!" and "Lord Galvatron!" and "Please, I didn't mean it!"

He did his best to struggle, too, but as it turned out, his limbs still needed Cyclonus' help. He could control his own vocalizer, and some of his sensors, but everything else was too fried.

His communicator hissed back to life, registering a message sent on the private frequency and code he shared with Cyclonus (one of the very, very few things in Cyclonus' life that were not shared with Galvatron).

"Good enough."

One more carefully-placed strike and Scourge was offline again.

*****

When his systems came online for the second time, he was in medbay, and everything hurt much less. Scavenger was standing over him, exclaiming in nervous excitement that he was awake, and then starting to tell him in great detail about his repair job.

Scourge couldn't process what the Constructicon was saying right now, much less respond, but it was possibly important, so he made sure to record it to his long-term memory files. He tried to get up, but his body wasn't responding properly, even though it now seemed to be in one undamaged piece.

He replayed the memory file from Scavenger. Sure enough. "We've got everything repaired and ready to work properly, but your sensory net is still badly damaged, it's going to take a awhile for those connections to reestablish themselves. If you take it easy, eventually you'll figure out which sensations come from which areas again...."

The shovel was offering him a hand up, and when it actually made contact with Scourge's hand, Scourge knew where his own hand was. The touch hurt, but it was a step up from not knowing if he was moving his hand or his wing. Scourge managed to grab it, and--by experimentation--pull himself off of the table and onto his feet, mostly leaning on Scavenger, but quickly relearning where the major parts of his body were.

"Everything hurts."

Scavenger looked at him anxiously. "It'll stop hurting soon, we think. But we've never seen quite the kind of damage the Matrix did to you."

*****

When Cyclonus walked in, Scourge was carefully walking around the medbay on Scavenger's arm. "He is repaired?" Cyclonus asked.

"Yes, Cyclonus! Everything's fixed except for the sensor damage," Scavenger looked and felt extremely nervous, and Scourge didn't blame him. Cyclonus didn't seem pleased, and though Scourge was usually better at figuring his wingmate's moods than the average Constructicon, that didn't really apply in his current state. "It's going to be a while for that to repair itself, but I gave Scourge instructions." Scavenger pushed Scourge in the general direction of Cyclonus, but Scourge didn't let go. He wasn't sure he was going to be able to walk unaided.

The moment of panic Scourge (and probably Scavenger) felt was alleviated when Cyclonus took Scourge's other arm. "Very well then. I will let you know when your services are needed further."

Since Scourge was still hesitant in walking, Cyclonus wrapped an arm around his waist, picked him up, and carried him down the hall vertically, almost as though they were walking side-by-side. Scourge allowed himself to relax against his wingmate, pressing his wing against Cyclonus' back and resting his helm against Cyclonus' shoulder.

Cyclonus permitted it. Scourge thought that was a good sign.

Cyclonus didn't say anything, which wasn't really a sign either way.

Cyclonus took Scourge to his quarters, rather than Scourge's, which was either a really good sign or a really bad sign. Most of the time, Scourge enjoyed being in Cyclonus' berth, but at the moment, he thought he would rather relax in the company of his Sweeps. Especially if Cyclonus had another punishment in mind.

But it wasn't up to him. He didn't say anything.

*****

Cyclonus laid Scourge out on his berth and went off to get something from somewhere else in the room. Scourge wasn't going to bother either moving his head or trying to piece together what Cyclonus was doing with his tracking systems.

When Cyclonus came back into view, he was carrying a bucket of paint, and a brush. A happy thrill went through Scourge at the thought of being repainted by Cyclonus--it wasn't something he did for Scourge very often, and it was always amazing. And it was badly needed, since the Constructicons had not bothered to repaint him. A few spare parts had come pre-painted from the Sweeps, and the few parts that hadn't been replaced still had patches of paint on them, but most of Scourge's plating was bare metal.

Cyclonus triggered a switch to raise the head of the berth slightly; Scourge did his best to move so that his wings weren't awkwardly stuck in the joint. "Because of your sensor damage, it is best that you watch what I am doing." He sat down on the berth and lifted one of Scourge's feet into his lap.

It felt good, for the most part. Scourge's sensors were settling down, but there were occasional moments where it felt like Cyclonus was touching his arm or his wing instead, or like burning pleasure or pain rather than simple physical contact. He watched, optical sensors matching Cyclonus' touch as best they could with the impulses from his sensor net, as Cyclonus dipped the brush into the paint.

It wasn't the right color.

He looked down at himself, then at the paint, then at Cyclonus. No, his optical sensors were not malfunctioning. That was Cyclonus' shade of purple, not any of the colors that belonged on _him_. "Cyclonus?" he asked, warily.

Cyclonus turned to look at him. "You need a reminder of whose you are."

"..._Yours_?!" Scourge didn't mean to sound as shocked as he did, but he hadn't expected this, and his scrambled processor tried to catch up. "I mean--not objecting, or--"

He stopped talking when Cyclonus struck him across the face. "_Galvatron's_."

That was--somewhat disappointing, actually, although of course Scourge should have known. "Yes, of course! How foolish of me. I am Galvatron's. Always." He wasn't lying to please Cyclonus--Scourge wasn't nearly as enthusiastic about being Galvatron's as Cyclonus was (no one, anywhere, ever, could be) but it was nonetheless _true_.

"As long as you understand." Cyclonus held Scourge's beard for a second--firmly, but not violently--and looked at him expectantly.

"I do. I belong to Mighty Galvatron, and I will always obey him." A slight pause--Scourge wasn't sure quite what mood Cyclonus was in. "And you."

"You've said that before." But Cyclonus didn't move to strike him or berate him further. "This is why you need a reminder." Cyclonus picked up the brush again--a much smaller brush, Scourge realized, than Cyclonus normally used to paint him--and started writing on the top of Scourge's foot.

It was difficult to hold his foot still, even though Scourge knew that would be in for a world of trouble if he moved it. At least Cyclonus had a firm grip on his heel with his other hand. Scourge could see what Cyclonus was writing--well, he could see the start of it, and the end wasn't hard to guess.

_Galvatron_.

It was ticklish and prickly and vaguely terrifying. Scourge's sensors kept firing off in the wrong ways, so that he wouldn't have been able to follow what Cyclonus was writing by touch alone, but watching helped calibrate his sensors in that area. The sensations settled into place as Cyclonus worked, so he could feel it--_Galvatron_ across his foot, _Galvatron_ across his processor.

But the writing didn't end where Scourge had expected it to. Not just _Galvatron_. _Galvatron's_, in the much more emphatic Decepticon genitive: _Galvatron's property, to command and dispose of as he sees fit._

For a twentieth of an astrosecond, Scourge wanted to flee. But he knew it wasn't possible, or even truly desirable--he _was_ Galvatron's, and for all that Cyclonus hadn't written it explicitly, Cyclonus' as well.

His confused systems settled on arousal. He half-moaned, "Yes. I am his."

Cyclonus turned and smiled at him.

*****

It might have gotten dull, after that. It probably should have, as Cyclonus insisted on carefully labelling him all over, once on each foot, three up the front of each legs and four more more on the sides, one down his groin, one across his belly, two on either sides of his chest, six on his arms, one on each hand, one on his beard, one on his forehead, one on his head-gun, a total of ten on his wings.

Cyclonus had a lot of patience, and never got tired of Galvatron's name. Some of the names had titles, too--the ones on his upper legs said 'Mighty', two on his wings and one on his chest said 'Lord'. All of them had the same strong possessive.

It might have been maddening, and almost was. On a normal day, the careful, delicate touches, Cyclonus' utter concentration, the feeling of Cyclonus over him but not on him would have had him begging and squirming, desperate for Cyclonus to give him _more_ and _harder_. But it wasn't a normal day, and under it all his diagnostics were running hard, trying to piece together his frayed sensor net from the sensations Cyclonus was giving him, matching up the chaos that was his tactile sensors with solid, reassuring presence of Cyclonus above him and the familiar glyphs of their Lord's name.

He nearly overloaded when Cyclonus did his beard. His commander held him firmly by the neck, powerful fingers not-quite-squeezing delicate components, optics focused intently slightly below Scourge's own. And then there was the feeling on the beard itself, the delicate touch of the brush, the slight weight of the paint on the thin, sensor-laden metal--that was going to be _distracting_, and Scourge wondered if Cyclonus was going to leave it there.

That...didn't seem like such a bad plan, right now. Embarrassing, sure, but Galvatron's name in Cyclonus' paint felt _good_, and it was both thrilling and comforting and completely _hot_ that Cyclonus cared enough to make his (to make Galvatron's) claim on him so clear. All over him, in his very own paint.

And then Cyclonus reached the end of the name, drawing the possessive inflection right below Scourge's lower lip, and Scourge's field flared _hard_. He couldn't speak, couldn't move, couldn't do anything except lie there, hoping Cyclonus wouldn't take it poorly.

Cyclonus' expression was inscrutable, but Scourge got a small field-flare back. It _ached_, on systems that had so recently been exposed to the Matrix, but it was oh so very welcome.

Maybe after this Cyclonus would plug into him, would flood Scourge's systems with strong, pure, Unicronian power, but without burning them out the way Galvatron sometimes did. Maybe. If Scourge was lucky.

Cyclonus moved on to the head-gun.

Staying put was going to be hard.

*****

By the time Cyclonus put the paintbrush away, Scourge' entire energy field was pulsing, but it was pulsing with his own energy, not the Matrix'. He felt much better physically; he knew where most of his components were and he was reasonably confident of his ability to get up and walk--not that he would, right now. Not unless Cyclonus gave him explicit permission.

For the moment, the reminder seemed to have worked wonderfully. Scourge felt extremely possessed, and he was _happy_ to be possessed. Was this what it was like to be Cyclonus?

Unlikely. _All_ Scourge wanted to do right now was submit, whereas while Cyclonus happily obeyed Galvatron, he was always active in his service, and as eager to dominate the rest of the world as he was to submit to his--_their_\--Lord.

No, Cyclonus was Cyclonus, and Scourge was Scourge, and Scourge had better pay attention to what Cyclonus was doing. His commander had gone out of optical sensor range an astrosecond ago.

When he returned, the hand that had held the paintbrush earlier now held an energon knife, hard and sharp enough to cut through Scourge's plating.

Unthinkingly, Scourge tried to scramble _away_, pushing himself up and back against the berth. He couldn't escape. He didn't, truly, _want_ to escape. But he couldn't keep himself from being frightened. Did Cyclonus think he hadn't been punished enough?

He wanted to protest, beg, proclaim his innocence, but he had said all he had to say for himself under Galvatron's cannon and Cyclonus' whip. And he didn't want to say anything that would remind Cyclonus too strongly of what he'd done.

"I _am_ Galvatron's," was all that was left, and his voice wavered somewhat with fear. _I am yours_, he meant, also, but it didn't seem like the right thing to say.

Cyclonus gave him a brief smile. "I know. But you can't wear the paint forever." He climbed back up onto the bed, straddling Scourge's thighs, this time sitting down on him, on top of three different _Galvatron's_. The paint had dried; Scourge was quite sure Cyclonus would not have marred his work.

Scourge didn't bother to ask further. He was going to find out soon, and when Cyclonus tapped the knife's hilt on the panel in his chest, he was distracted from the question by a massive bolt of pain from his still-damaged systems. He muffled a scream.

Above him, Cyclonus took the knife away as though his hand had been burned. "What was _that_?"

Scourge got a grip on himself. "Uh. Just--Matrix residue? I think? My sensor net is still scrambled."

"The Matrix," Cyclonus growled, and his voice and his expression scared Scourge enough to make him flinch back again. Futilely, of course; he wasn't going to throw Cyclonus off of him in his current condition. Or his normal condition, for that matter, and he wasn't even going to think about the conditions that made that sort of thing possible.

"Open it," Cyclonus ordered, slightly less angrily, and Scourge obeyed. It wasn't his spark chamber, but that was only slightly reassuring. He braced himself; he had no idea what his damaged systems were going to do when Cyclonus actually reached in. For that matter, he didn't know what _Cyclonus_ was going to do.

Cyclonus seemed to be trying to be gentle. He wrapped one arm around Scourge's shoulder and neck, holding him in a half-embrace as the other hand reached in with the knife.

It hurt. Scourge flung his arm and his wing around Cyclonus, trying to hold himself still for whatever his commander intended. Cyclonus seemed to be feeling some of it too, but he held his knife steady, carefully reaching all the way to the back of the chamber.

"Our Lord's name will stay here," Cyclonus said, right into Scourge's audio, and started carving.

It hurt. It would have hurt even without the damage to Scourge's sensors and whatever other residue the Matrix had left behind. Scourge knew this first-hand; both Cyclonus and Galvatron had used energon knives on him before.

But it was a good sort of pain. Cyclonus projected his energy field through the knife, and Scourge's own field embraced it gratefully, a reprieve from and an ally against the alien Matrix energy. Scourge forced himself to focus on the glyphs of Galvatron's name as they were carved into him. It was, he was sure, what Cyclonus wanted him to do.

_Electricity. Power. Cybertron. Decepticon._

Together, _Galvatron._

And the last: _Property of._

When the writing was complete, Cyclonus subspaced the knife. But he kept his hand inside of Scourge, pressed reverently against Galvatron's name, and wrapped himself and his energy field entirely around his wingmate.

Scourge knew who he belonged to.


End file.
